Various forms of garbage and waste, for example household waste including various compostable materials such as yard trimmings and the like, are commonly disposed of in flexible garbage bags. In order to maintain flexible garbage bags in an open position for depositing waste therein various types of holders are known to support garbage bags thereon.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,213,291 by Wiebe disclosed one example of a garbage bag holder in which a plastic garbage bag is arranged to be retained in an open position under tension between two opposed side frames having angularly outward offset portions at the top ends thereof to retain a top edge of the bag folded overtop of the offset portions and thus suspend the plastic garbage bag therefrom. Various similar design are disclose in the prior art, however such designs cannot be adapted for paper bags as the top edge of a paper bag cannot be readily folded over without tearing the bag so that these types of garbage bag holders cannot accommodate paper bags.
When using paper bags which typically are more rectangular in shape, various other designs of bag holders are disclosed in the prior art. Typical examples can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 1,653,393 by Cox; U.S. Pat. No. 3,905,406 by Cruse; and U.S. Pat. No. 7,066,220 by Take et al. In each instance two side frames, each comprising two parallel and spaced apart downward extending legs, are mounted on a common frame spaced apart from one another for receiving the four legs downwardly into the four corners of a generally rectangular paper bag. The legs are inserted into the bag along the full height of the bag to support the legs on the bottom of the bag while the upper portion of the legs maintain the top end of the bag in an open configuration. In the illustrated examples in the prior art noted herein, the size of the frames is critical as it must closely match the size of the bag to receive the four legs within the four corners of the bag. Accordingly the frames are not adaptable to minor variations in sizes of the bags. Furthermore the legs span the full height of the bag within the interior thereof which is filled with waste such that the legs become soiled and contaminated with waste and require cleaning after use. Due to the freely unsupported bottom ends of the legs, it is difficult to provide an outward pressure along the length of the bag so that even if the side frames are provided with some mechanism to spread the frame, any outward pressure to support the bag under tension concentrates the outward separation force between the two side frames at the pivotal connection between the two side frames at the top end of the bag which promotes tearing of the top edge of the bag.